Nazi War Crimes Trials:
Second Bergen-Belsen Trial

(May - June 1946)

Five ex-officials of the Bergen-Belsen concentration
camp were tried by a British military court
at Wuppertal from the 16th May 1946 to the
30th May 1946, all of the defendants were
found guilty, and four were sentenced to
death, and one to imprisonment. Those sentenced
to death were executed on the 11th October
1946.

A second Bergen-Belsen Trial
was conducted at Luneberg from June 13-18,
1946 by a British Military Court to try Kazimierz
Cegielski, a Polish National who was a "KAPO" ("Camp
Police") at Bergen-Belsen,
arriving there in March 1944, according to
his testimony. Kapos were
prisoner-trustees assigned by the SS as
overseers over their fellow prisoners. They
tended to be "political" or criminal
prisoners. There were five Kapos in Bergen-Belsen,
two of them under the name "Kazimierz" differentiated
as "Big Kazimierz" (the defendent)
and "Little Kazimierz".

Cegielski was charged with
cruelty and murder and was noted for beating
and at times killing the sick and weakend
prisoners with large wooden sticks or poles.
While in Bergen-Belsen he
was having an affair with a prisoner, a young
Jewish woman from Amsterdam, Hennny DeHaas.
He was caught in 1946 when he came to Amsterdam
ostensibly to find and marry DeHaas. He was
convicted on June 18th, 1946 and sentenced
to death by hanging. The day before he was
to be hanged he made a statement saying his
real name was Kasimir-Alexander Rydzewski.
He was executed at Hameln Prison at 9:20
A.M. on October 11, 1946. (First-hand witness
account as transcribed by Steven Hess)

Walter Quakernack: The Death
Sentence (Executed on the 11th October 1946)
Heinz - Züder Heidemann: The Death Sentence
(Executed on the 11th October 1946)
Heinrich Redehase: The Death Sentence (Executed
on the 11th October 1946)
Karl Schmitt: 15 Years Imprisonment
Kapo Kasimir Cegielski: The Death Sentence
(Executed on the 11th October 1946)